Thanks to Ini, the relatively steady second sister of the spirit puppets, Eilush’s prank didn’t succeed.
She was forced to obediently take out a device resembling a hairdryer to quickly dry and put on her clothes.
Meanwhile, led by the dragon girl, the other girls followed one after another, plunging into the pool from which Violet had just emerged. No one was left behind.
This time, as an observer, Violet finally saw how they descended. It was simple: they passed directly through the overhead stone wall, which turned out to be fake.
Except for Xiao Guang, who reacted quickly and spread her dragon wings to stabilize herself mid-air, the other girls fell into the water in various awkward poses. After spinning around in the water, they slowly climbed back to the shore, drenched.
“Ouch... what a mess...”
Miss Theresa, who had managed to get back to the shore with Edwina’s help, was leaning against the stone wall, using the drying spell she learned from the winged people, still softly complaining.
Theresa wasn’t the only one puzzled by the situation. Violet and the others, including the dragon girl, handled their wet clothes and bodies while casting curious glances around and looking up at the seemingly impenetrable stone ceiling.
Clearly, they were all starting to notice the peculiarity of the situation. Seeing everyone’s puzzled expressions, Miss Ini, who had already dried herself off, didn’t keep them in suspense this time. Instead, she smiled gently and began to explain.
“This is a special material created by 【Father】, which he calls 【Magic Fusion Alloy】. It determines the type of magic of the contact object and selectively blocks certain specific targets. Hmm... does that explanation make sense to everyone?”
“【Magic Fusion Alloy】? What a strange name... but yesterday, when we were soaking in the spring, it clearly...”
Eilush, who had just been reprimanded but clearly didn’t take it to heart, cheerfully waved her hand, interrupting the magic wolf girl who was about to say something while drying the fur of the little wolf cub in her arms.
“It’s simple! There’s a partition, I added a partition! The bottom of the spiritual spring has two layers, and the upper layer is retractable!”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Miss Ini nodded in agreement.
【Magic Fusion Alloy】...
The name sounded quite like something a traveler would come up with.
Although Violet couldn’t quite grasp the principle behind it, since they could create extraordinary things like spirit puppets, a few metal plates that could block water weren’t really that surprising.
Violet turned her gaze around the area.
The environment here resembled an underground waterway. The damp, bluish-gray stone walls occasionally dripped liquid, producing a sound reminiscent of raindrops.
A stream-like underground river flowed from around a corner and into the pool where they had just descended.
This underground channel had clearly existed for many years, as evidenced by the beginnings of stalactites in some places—natural formations that take more than a century to develop.
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Curiously, the temperature here was quite high. Despite it being late autumn outside, the temperature here was such that even when soaked, they didn’t feel any cold.
Instead, they were sweating as if there was a natural heater beneath their feet constantly emitting heat.
In fact, Violet had already experienced it firsthand: the underground water here was warm, which explained why the pool above was a hot spring.
However, the heat was within tolerable limits for the human body. Since none of them were ordinary humans, they could ward off the discomfort to some extent by releasing their magic externally to block the heat.
As she led the group along the flowing waterway, Ini explained softly.
“This place wasn’t built by our Spirit Puppet Tribe . Over a century ago, when we moved here, it was a dense forest above. We chose this forest for its seclusion, and it was only after we settled that we discovered this huge and unusual space beneath the ground. Moreover...”
At this point, Ini suddenly fell silent. It wasn’t that she was keeping them in suspense again. Rather, she seemed to think that seeing it with their own eyes would be more impactful than any explanation.
As they conversed, they reached an unremarkable-looking stone wall. Ini seemed unfamiliar with it, searching for a moment before pressing a spot on the wall.
In the quiet underground, where only the sound of dripping water could be heard, a cold mechanical voice suddenly rang out.
“Access request detected. Identifying individual target. Fingerprint scanning... Fingerprint model not obtained. Iris scanning... Iris model not obtained. Identification process error... Initiating backup logic code... Backup logic code initiated successfully. Identified as humanoid bionic puppet individual. Performing full-body scan identification...”
“Huh? What is this thing?!”
“Miss Ini? Are you alright...?”
The sudden, lengthy voice startled everyone, except for Ini and Eilush, who had anticipated this. Eilush turned around with a grin, pointing at the red light emerging from the deformed wall, which was scanning Ini from head to toe.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. This thing’s intelligence isn’t great, it always goes through this process. But it does recognize us.”
She added, tilting her head slightly as if a bit disappointed.
“Huh? Violet, why are you so calm? We were all startled the first time we encountered it.”
“Well, did you really expect me to be all flustered...?”
The priestess shook her head in resignation, choosing to ignore the troublemaker who seemed to thrive on chaos.
Of course, she was quite surprised too. But to be honest, she wasn’t completely unprepared. After all, she had heard similar mechanical sounds when Violet went to find Eilush to fix a malfunction yesterday.
As someone with memories of traversing through the Earth, Violet wasn’t as unfamiliar with machinery as the native residents of this world. From the time she learned about the so-called 【Magic Fusion Alloy】 and even earlier, Violet had a rough idea of what might happen in this place. Combined with the excellent psychological resilience of the divine race, it was natural for her to remain calm.
In just a few moments of casual conversation, the red-colored creature scanning Ini from head to toe—a thing that might seem strange to others—Violet could tell was obviously some kind of electronic eye, had completed its work process and emitted another cold, crisp mechanical sound.
“The scan is complete. Identity object recognized. Individual designation—’Three Paths River’ Project Bionic Magus Puppet No. 0003. Access granted. Disarmed.”
With that, the glowing electronic eye quickly extinguished, retracting and reshaping itself back into the wall. In front of Ini, the metal door disguised as a stone wall silently opened.
Hmm, quite the sensation.
Setting aside other matters for now, the electronic eye just mentioned the ‘Three Paths River’. This term on the Earth represents concepts like ‘Underworld’ or ‘Passing to the Afterlife’.
Could this be the plan that Ini previously mentioned—the plan devised by the ‘Father’ of the Spirit Puppet Tribe to resurrect his beloved?
And this mechanical AI recognizing Ini...
Did this mean that this place is actually a secret base created by that ‘Father’?